Posts Tagged ‘Erkan's mumbles’

Facebook continues to have a negative relationship with activist news service Ötekilerin Postası who provides activist news with a radical left and pro-Kurdish perpestive. Today, it announced from its Twitter account its Facebok page was closed again and it listed the not much reasonable reasons to close down its pages or cases of censorship…

During the day, Burhan Kuzu, an AKP deputy who happens to be a professor on constitutional law, tweeted that a list that contains around 2 thousand high level bureaucrats’ names have been given to PM Erdoğan. Supposedly these people are followers of Fethullah Gülen and will be eliminated from the state bureaucracy. Mr. Kuzu is known to have lost his reasonable argumentation gradually as he became a vocal supporter of the ruling party. So I did not take it too seriously. Since AKP is already replacing many bureaucrats without much rational explanation. …

Towards the end of the day a breaking news popped up: Turkey seizes arms in truck bound for Syria. It was also claimed that the truck belonged to IHH, an explicitly jihadist charity organization that started the Mavi Marmara incident. IHH officials vehemently denied this. It might be true. CHP deputy of Hatay also confirmed the truck did not belong to IHH. But in the mean time, nobody denied arms…And in the mean time, pro-AKP Sabah daily’s editor threatened Radikal daily correspondent who made the news about the truck…

It is sort of a common belief that government allows arms shipments to Jihadist opposition in Syria. This was yet another possible evidence. It is claimed that Turkish intelligence prevented gendarme to prevent further search… True or false, the problem is government prefers not transparency in this issues like in many other issues.

In the mean time, pro-AKP circles produced more than enough discursive trash on the first day of the year.

A local correspondent of İhlas Haber Ajansı supported re-emergence of “unsolved murders”. He later closed his account and stated that his account was hacked… But his previous twitter messages were quiet aggressive…

Another journalist blamed Gülen Movement and warned for possible attacks to prep schools… And then comes worse: Hamdi Kılıç, an advisor of PM Erdoğan threatens with “traditions of the state responses might be very harsh”:

In the mean time, AKP leadership was born out of Necmettin Erbakan‘s conservative/Islamist line of parties, and most of current leadership is attributed to a Naqshi tariqah branch, Esad Coşan circle.

FGM and AKP leadership never politically allied until AKP’s rise. The latter had an explicitly Islamist agenda, and Erbakan’s previous parties were closed down by the Turkish State. FGM rarely challenged State Authority explicitly and harshly criticized other Islamist group who were explicit about it (like in 28 February days, against headscarf ban). FGM decided to focus on educational system and mobilized its followers to pursue careers in education, legal institutions and police forces. FGM network has gone beyond Turkey and became global as the FGM’s schools and universities were founded from Africa to Northern America. FGM’s private prep schools from the national university entrance exam had become the most powerful network in the country. Current tension began with AKP’s move to close down these prep schools. However, tense relations between to factions would lead to an open struggle anyway. Competition over state resources would inevitably be tense. Since there is no powerful organized opposition and armed forces are at the command of Erdoğan for the moment, AKP could decide to start the fight…

Ideologically, FGM movement in general more conservative and (Turkish) nationalist. Socially, most of the members are more educated than core AKP follower base. AKP relies on populist mobilization which sometimes becomes openly fascit while FGM relies on bureaucratic power and never ending alliances.

AKP gradually broke down all alliances as it became more powerful. At the moment, we de facto live a one-party regime under AKP rule.

On specific issues, Kurdish question. FGM’s inherent Turkish nationalism worked against solving the Kurdish question. Since its rival AKP initiated a peace process, FGM positioned itself against the process. I do not believe AKP is sincere in the peace process (you can just look at my blog archive to see how Erdoğan was anti-Kurdish a few years ago), however, it is politically pragmatic and sees this process will get more votes and consolidate its power in the Western lands as there will not be more fighting in the East…

On the Gezi Protests, we now how AKP reacted and that where my basic opposition to AKP is born out. FGM favored a double-strategy. In its Turkish media, it was slightly pro-AKP but in its English media (Today’s Zaman) it was explicitly pro-Gezi. Now that there is open warfare between two factions, FGM becomes more pro-Gezi. However, under normal conditions, FGM never favors street activism and its supporters in police forces do not seem to be different from other police personnel in treating activists.

In foreign relations, FGM favors international status quo. That means you won’t hear much against EU, US or Israel. In the Mavi Marmara case, FGM criticized Turkish government and since then some of the militant sections within pro-goverment circles including IHH, are pursuing revenge against the movement. Its Sunnism will probably be working against more relations with Iran, too.

One of the many consequences of this tension is that FGM supporters become more vocal nowadays. They are not hiding. That was one thing I was very critical of FGM. A continous taqiyye. This process, apart from many negative happenings, is leading a further civilianisation of a closed-circle organization…

In the mean time, if AKP wins this struggle, there does not seem to be any organized opposition to Erdoğan left within the Turkish State and a one-man rule actually begins…

p.s. if there comes any feedback or questions, I will try to elaborate…

For the last 4 days, AKP’s plan to eliminate prep schools has been challenged in Twitter not by Gezi protesters but by Fethullah Gülen movement sympathizers. Private prep school network all over Turkey is one of the major recruitment hub for the Gülen movement (Cemaat). As the uneasy alliance between Erdoğan’s AKP and Gülen movement comes to an end, the former moves to weaken the latter. I am not sure to what extent this move will be successful. There are so many other stuff going on behind the doors that we cannot know in near future. However, the hashtag above remains to be number for 3 days now. Most contributor are “real names” unlike those pro-AKP users who heavily rely on politicized nicknames. Pro-AKP hashtags popped up regularly but could not stay long. Usual suspects who also triggered anti-Gezi hashtags could be seen but they could not lead substantive campaigning against Cemaat campaigning. Cemaat members are known to hide their political identities but things change. Now they are actively campaigning against AKP’s use of state power.

Pro-AKP users rely on conspiracy theories, claiming ties to Israel etc, or blaming Fethullan Gülen as a conspirator with coup plotters or foreign powers. In the mean time, they cannot sustain their campaigning. According to Yasin Kesen who monitors social media/ Twitter accounts in Turkish on 11 November 11.778.156 tweet messages in Turkey were produced. On 18 November (yesterday) 14.145.780 messages were produced. You can guess who are the new comers… Cemaat attends the Twitter games now… and in the mean time, for the last 53 hours the same pro-Prep School hashtag remains at the top of Turkey TT list:

Reuters World General News (UK) Monday, November 18, 2013 Français By Humeyra Pamuk and Gulsen Solaker, Ankara For decades his picture dominated Turkey, piercing blue eyes staring from hoardings, keeping watch over city streets and army barracks. Schoolyards echoed every morning to his oath: “Happy is he who can say ‘I am a Turk!’” Now

A recent article in Dutch newspaper accuses the rector of Islamic University of Rotterdam, Ahmet Akgündüz, of spreading intolerance, anti-western beliefs etc. And he is also quoted today in our social media circles of blaming Occupy Gezi activists as “mosque enemies, communist union leaders, pro-Asad people who murders Muslims, Alevites etc.”

Before he disappeared from Turkey media scene, he was known to promote a mythical IslamisedOttoman Empire, which had no scientific basis but already ideologically located in Turkey’s conservative/ right wing circles. Now he moves to Europe to promote such intolerant dogmatic ideas while he uses European standards of freedom of speech in order to defy Western lifestyles.

A literally crying person might make you think they have such a compassion for all but it seems that most of Turkey’s leaders do that as a political rhetorical weapon and not compassionate at all towards citizens in opposition. I would naively expect much more understanding and compassion for opposing citizens instead of increasing police brutality and threats against notable Turkish citizens on a daily basis now…